


Bent, Not Broken

by madame_faust



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Durin Family, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-02
Updated: 2013-02-02
Packaged: 2017-11-27 21:29:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/666693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for this prompt on the kink meme, "After the battle with Azog and the disapearence of his father, Thorin begin suffering some downright horrifying nightmares. Dis finds her big brother in the grips of one one night and tries her very best to comfort and reassure him."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bent, Not Broken

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing and am making no profit from this story. Read the original fill and prompt here: http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/3651.html?thread=7931459#t7931459
> 
> The song quoted is "Turn of the Century" by Yes. In case anyone is wondering, in my headcanon, Dís was nearing 60 during Azanulbizar, so about 13 in Dwarf years. Frerin was in his early 70s (16ish) and Thorin's just about 90 (20ish). It messes with their canon ages a bit, but I like the brothers spaced out.

All her knowledge of the Battle of Azanulbizar came from her brother’s lips. Not in quiet talks by moonlight when both of them were too haunted by memories to sleep. Neither did he slur his regrets drunkenly after Dwalin packed him off to the nearest pub, claiming the diversion was good for him. Thorin would never willingly discuss the battle with his sister and would be mortified to know that she heard his lamentations, cries of remembered pain and screams of anguish almost nightly since their father disappeared.  
  
Dís, unable to bear remaining behind, safely tucked away from the battle, was on the edge of the fray in the tents with the healers that awful day. Most of those about her were other women and young girls like herself. Others were men too old or skilled at their craft to lose in battle. As the horns blew and the war-cries rang out from close by, her heart gave a thrill. Other young dwarves who had never seen battle were similarly excited and talked amongst themselves in breathless whispers, but their elders said nothing. They kept their eyes trained on the skies above them and the ravens that circled endlessly overhead. When the birds began bringing news back of the dead and injured, there was no more time for talk.  
  
All while she scurried about, aiding in the treatment of the wounded as best she could, Dís listened for word of her brothers. Young as she was, she fully expected both of them to come back to her, probably one supporting the other who would be sporting some impressive, but ultimately benign injury. Death was something that happened to other people’s families. They survived the day the dragon came intact. Bent, but not broken was the line of Durin. They endured. They would always endure.  
  
It was only after word reached them that the King had fallen, her heart leapt into her throat and she felt fear for the first time since the battle began. There was no time to grieve or weep; the number of dwarves dragged from the field was mounting ever higher until they could no longer contain them all within the tents and Dís had to rend her own garments because they ran out of wrappings to splint broken bones and stopper the flow of blood.  
  
When Thorin returned alone, but for his brother’s armor and a broken tree branch in his hand, the bottom fell out of Dís’s world. She wept in his arms and her brother held her close, ignoring the healers who bade him to rest and recover. She struck out blindly in her anguish and fury, raining blows on her brother’s chest that silently withstood. Once she exhausted her tears and finally looked in her brother’s face and realized what she’d done, she tried to apologize, but Thorin would have none of it. His face, the perfect blank slate, fell them. Crumpled, really. And he told her in a voice that shook around the edges to hush as he took her in his arms again and held her so tightly and for so long, she thought they would stay that way until the world ended.  
  
The world did not end. Their dead were beyond reckoning, but they were victorious, if one could name a victor in such a slaughter. Thorin was being treated for his wounds, one hand in his sister’s though his eyes looked past her, beyond the flaps of the tent. In his mind’s eye he saw the battle raging on and on and the light that went of his brother’s eyes when rumors spread that Thráin, now King Under the Mountain, wanted to retake Moria.

Thorin’s head snapped up and he did the strangest thing: he laughed. It was a harsh, terrible sound and now it was Dís who hushed her brother and begged him to be quiet with fear in her eyes. His grip on her hand loosened and he struggled to his feet. If his King bade him come, he would come and throw himself headlong into death, as was his duty as a warrior and prince. Dís nearly brought shame upon her family in that moment, for she too sprang to her feet and caught her brother’s strong, crimson-stained fingers in her grasp, ready to plead with him to stay with her.  
  
It was unthinkable for an able-bodied dwarrow man to shy away from battle; unless he was missing his dominant arm, Thorin would be expected to fight and any objections voiced by a sister, however loving her intentions, would make cowards of the whole family. Thorin looked down at her, reading her intentions in her eyes and she looked down, shamed, but he lifted her chin and kissed her on the forehead. He took her face in his broad, calloused hands and held it for a long moment, memorizing every feature, from her tanned brow, creased in worry, the line of her straight nose the soft, still childish scruff that framed her face so beautifully and those dark blue eyes, so profoundly sad for one so young.  
  
Dís raised her smaller hands to cover her brother’s and she swallowed all her sorrow and her fear enough to whisper a blessing in Khuzdul, a prayer for the warrior and the glorious slain. All her prayers were for naught, however. Just before Thorin was to take up his sword again, a messenger ran alongside the tent, shouting that young Dáin of the Iron Hills declared that no one would enter Moria that day. There were too many dead and too many wounded for the venture to be anything but a folly.  
  
Never would she breathe a word of her brother’s reaction to another soul as long as she lived. Thorin had the stoutest heart of any Dwarf, but there was no mistaking the look in his eyes when he learned there would be no second charge: relief.  
  
When their father returned to the tents, beard torn and half-lame due to a spear wound in his thigh, he was full of curses for Dain and his circumspection. His rantings had a feverish quality to them and Balin and Dwalin bore him into the tent, weighted down by grief for their own dead father. The brothers, Balin later informed Thorin in an urgent whisper, had to hold him back from attacking Dáin where he stood. Thráin spoke not a word about his father or his son, his heart was inflamed not by grief, but by the desire for swift vengeance and long overdue glory. Yet Durin’s Bane lurked in the gloomy depths still and revenge could not be wrought from hands around the throats of dead enemies.  
  
That night, there were no songs and no feasting, the smoke that filled the night sky carried choking scent of burning flesh and hair. While her brother slept restlessly, Dís snuck away from his side to watch the orange flames curl higher and higher against the black sky and a memory stirred; once again her world was fire, death and fear. She fell to her knees, overcome with grief for those she knew lost long ago in Erebor and the valiant dead before her, but the fire burned so hot and so long that try as she might, she could not cry.  
  
Their father did not speak again in their hearing. Once the wounded were healed up enough to travel, Dáin (whose men began to call him ‘Ironfoot’) and his warriors went back to the Iron Hills. Thorin, who the people named ‘Oakenshield,’ called his bruised and battered people together and they continued on their weary course of wandering that began decades ago and showed no signs of ending.

Not even their mother, whose arms gathered her remaining children close to her when they arrived at their camp on the outskirts of a village of Men, could coax her father into speaking. Though he was recovering from his wounds rapidly, he seemed to retreat further and further from them in his mind daily until one morning they rose to ready the wagons and move on and he was gone.  
  
That was when the bad nights started. Thorin had a habit of murmuring in his sleep from childhood, but Dís quickly learned to differentiate between a harmless dream and remembered horrors from the battled; while Thorin dreamt in Common Speech, his nightmares were always in Khuzdul.  
  
The first time, she’d not had any idea what to do. She had been sleeping alongside her mother for warmth when a shout caused her to bolt upright in bed. Beside her, her mother had not stirred; their days were tiring for her and she had been in low spirits since her husband disappeared, so she slept deeply. Once her eyes adjusted to the darkness she became conscious of her brother thrashing violently in his bedroll. She wanted to do _something_ , but instead she lay back down, pulled her blankets over her head and pretended not to hear his labored breathing that sounded so like sobbing it broke her heart.  
  
Thorin was a proud dwarf, ever loathe to admit to weakness. He woke early the next morning and prepared a simple meal for his mother and sister as though he was just being thoughtful rather than finding some occupation that would account for early rising. Dís hardly knew what was to be done about it, when she was a little dwarfling, terrified after the dragon came her brothers were by her side, protecting her. Thorin would take hold her night and for many years she slept tucked soundly between her brothers, safe and secure that between Thorin’s strong arms and Frerin’s voice, lulling her to sleep with some sweet song (or, more frequently, making her giggle with a bawdy one) she had nothing in the world to fear. Eventually, her confusion turned into determination; Thorin looked after her for years. Now he needed looking after and she would not be frightened away by worries over his wounded pride.  
  
Night after night the same horrors came to him. Night after night he witnessed his brother fall and was powerless to prevent it. Living through it was bad enough, what wrong had Thorin done that he must relive it again and again?  
  
During a violent storm, they were forced to spend what little money they had left on a room for the night, there being no obliging caves in the area. If Thorin’s night time terrors woke the landlord or others, they’d surely be tossed out into the night, whipping winds and snow or not. So when Dís heard the shifting of the sheets and the murmurs that grew louder with each passing moment, she crept from her own bed and stood hesitantly beside her brother, reaching out to stay his flailing arms.  
  
That was an error; he unconsciously swiped at her and sent her sprawling to the floor. Dís was uninjured and only hoped the racket she caused falling would go unnoticed. She tried another tactic, “Thorin,” she whispered urgently. “ _Thorin_.” But he slept on and her voice seemed only to enrage him; she might have been any number of Dwarves calling out to their prince for aid or instruction on the battlefield.  
  
“Brother,” she tried again. “Please.”

That time Thorin woke with a gasp, a sheen of sweat on his brow and chest. His blue eyes darted wildly about the room and fell on his sister, pale and frightened beside him. With a muffled groan, he rolled over, turning his back to her. He woke often enough, drenched to the skin, heart thudding as though it would beat out of his chest and the sounds of the battle echoing in his ears to know _exactly_ what brought her to his bedside and he was ashamed.  
  
Dís would have none of her brother’s shame. He was a mighty warrior who was doing all he could to keep the tattered remains of their family together and the even more impossible task of seeing to his people in their father’s absence. It was unfair that he should suffer in his sleep after a hard day’s worry and labor. Doubtless against her brother’s wishes, Dís crawled into bed beside him, running her fingers through his damp hair, untangling it. He caught one of her hands in his and held it to his chest. She could feel the drumming of his heart through his skin.  
  
“Is there anything at all you want?” she whispered desperately. “Is there anything I can do?”  
  
She fully expected him to ask her firmly, but gently to leave him in peace. Perhaps he would allow her to get him a glass of water or something mundane, just to satisfy her, but she was surprised when her brother turned to her and asked, very quietly, “Sing for me. Something he loved.”  
  
There was little time for musical instruction on the road. The older dwarves all had an instrument to their names, even Frerin played the flute (poorly), but Dís had a voice and it was counted a fairly good one, though childishly high because of her youth. Casting her mind about, she remembered a song from their mythology, a sad, but beautiful song about love and loss. Frerin’s songs were usually as sunny and cheerful as he was, but this was a particular favorite.  
  
“Realizing a form out of stone, set hands moving.  
Roan shaped his heart with his working hands  
Worked to mold his passion into clay.  
Like the sun.  
  
In his room, his lady, she would dance and sing  
So completely.  
‘So be still!’ he now cries, ‘I have time,  
Oh let clay transform thee so.’”  
  
It was a good choice. As she sang, her brother’s heart stopped thumping quite so fiercely and his breathing slowed. Thorin relaxed so much that Dís realized Frerin’s nighttime singing might have not been for her benefit alone. He was asleep by the time the song ended, his fingers still loosely twined with hers. Dís lay beside him, watching him sleep peacefully for the first time in weeks. Her eyes grew heavier and heavier, soon she put her head down on her brother’s pillow and joined him in slumber.  
  
Before she drifted off, she made a promise in her heart, where only her grandfather and her brother might know of it. _I’ll take care of him,_ she thought drowsily. _And he will take care of me. And we will endure._  
  
The next morning she would not remember, but the instant before sleep took her, Dís thought she felt something cool brush her face. If she did recall, she would dismiss it as a strong gust of wind rushing through chinks in the plaster walls and perhaps it was. Yet, in that darkness, it seemed that someone somewhere outside the ken of mortal creatures heard her simple vow and looked on her approvingly.


End file.
